Totally. All else being equal, socking away your money in broadly-diversified index funds within a tax-advantaged account is a more reliable strategy for wealth building than buying a single house in a random market. But human psychology gets a much bigger kick out of owning your own home than owning very small slices of profitable companies in 191 countries, and when public policy and human psychology collide, human psychology wins. :) It's better to incentivize people to save in the way they're willing to save anyway than have people not save at all.

It's not human psychology so much as having, you know, a place to live...

(In overheated markets, 'rent+invest' can be better than 'own', but a full accounting needs to consider the cost of a living arrangement.)

What about the inevitable growth in telecommuting? Surely owning a home with plenty of space for a semi-isolated home office would be a good thing?

Agreed. If anything, tax incentives should be offered to businesses that allow telecommuting. From a resource/green perpspective as well as providing a more efficient employment environment, it's a 'good' thing.

This is an argument for buying a house in a low cost-of-living area with a high quality of life. Easy telecommuting will certainly not be kind to the home prices in concentrated metropolises that can only justify their property prices because of the existence of jobs that you can't find anywhere else. I should know -- the only reason I personally am in the Bay Area is because I couldn't make this much money anywhere else. Given the choice, I'd be working from a modest home on the beach somewhere in Mexico. :D

Sounds you figured out the formula early. Did you get guidance or just saw it yourself?